Batka or godfather?

In 2010, Russian television aired a four-part series on Belarus’s President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. It gave it – and him – the title “The godfather”. In effect, the programmes advertised what was already well-known: that Vladimir Putin loathes Lukashenka. Andrew Wilson’s book on Belarus mentions three possible reasons: the former KGB officer Putin contemptuously views Lukashenka, once a lowly KGB border guard (and pig-farmer), as a “hick”; Lukashenka incessantly riles him politically; and Putin is “particularly sensitive about apparently successful authoritarian competition on his doorstep”.

It is easy enough to see how Lukashenka can claim to have made Belarus a “cosy and tranquil home” over the past 18 years. Belarus was spared much of Russia’s turmoil in the 1990s. Inequality is less glaring than in Russia. The ghosts of five people who disappeared in 1999-2000 haunt the Belarusian regime, but Russians’ lives are more marked by violence, terrorism and war. He also knows how to maintain primacy: Lukashenka has curbed opposition, limited the number of oligarchs, and proved adept at controlling siloviki, the “men of force”.

The paternalistic father

Or, to use Wilson’s description, Lukashenka is a batka, a strict and paternalistic father (Putin is, by contrast, a “tub-thumping Chekist”, a KGB man).

That description highlights an oddity about Wilson’s book. He is very good at showing Lukashenka’s failure to create a forward-looking image for Belarus. He also shows very effectively why this is difficult, by analysing how small and tricky are the potential building blocks for Belarusian identity. But he devotes relatively few pages to Lukashenka’s paternalism and to how he has managed to retain a sizable pool of genuine support.

That is a shame. Wilson writes very well and does a fine job of showing that politics is never static in dictatorships. However, a look at culture, sociology and everyday life would have brought more life to what will, for many, be an introduction to a country they know only as “Europe’s last dictatorship”.

It might also have altered the emphasis of his conclusion. Since Lukashenka has not succeeded at creating a positive vision for Belarus and with Belarus hitting the rocks economically, Wilson sees Lukashenka’s options as limited. He could make Belarus a new Singapore or a new China, but, Wilson suggests, would struggle to do so.

But perhaps, rather, the main lesson to emerge is that Lukashenka is a master at finding room for manoeuvre. “Even Lukashenka will not last for ever,” Wilson writes. But it would be a reasonable bet that Lukashenka will outlast Putin.